c-sevenLong time lurker just joined the forum..
Spent the day at the Dubai Airshow yesterday..
I am a Pilot but of Heavy Metal, I really enjoyed the show and was interested to see the Typhoon, F-16E, Rafael and F-15E display.
My impression is that the F-16E is still very impressive for an old design and that big GE motor gives it lots of grunt, but the Rafale really blew me away the display was very very good.. How he kept the machine in such a small piece of sky and still displayed some high speed maneuvers was very cool, the machine appears to be in another league in power-to-weight ration and maneuverability, the Typhoon looks and displays like a bigger heavier aeroplane and the display was quite similar to the F-15E except at times he seamed to be able to point the nose quicker then the Big American twin… still as I saw it the Rafale is/displays as a far more maneuverable aircraft…
I know that display flying is not an indication of real world war-fighting ability BUT.. the Rafale seams to be able to turn and point and squirt with such speed and control it has to provide some advantage…
My Two Dirhams worth
Thanks to share with us your experience General Dog and wellcome.
About the Dubaï air show presentation:
Rafale perform a big show at Dubai
Armee Air, Nov 17It won the majority of the votes! In the opinion of many experts in the Dubai Airshow 2011, the Rafale offers the most impressive flying display of UAE Airshow.
On the applause meter, the French fighter is ahead of many other aircrafts (F15, F16, Typhoon, Mirage 2000-9, …).
Google translated from:
http://www.defense.gouv.fr/air/actus-air/le-rafale-assure-le-spectacle-au-dubai-airshow
Well, I thought that it’s the gov’ web site which tend sometime to be “over-positive” but your accound seems to confirm the “applausemetter” thing 🙂
c-sevenDassault should take the long view though and do their very best to notch one up on the board even if it means less profit than they would’ve liked.
When Dassault make less profit than expected, it means for them that they’ve lost money on the deal 😀
As Kovy told once, the USA will become conmunist before Dassault to lose money on a deal…
… all fair and nice but it’ll be maybe wise to re-evaluate this policy temporarily in a context of over-evaluated Euro.
If they are ejected out of the market, it’ll be the value of all their technological asset which will be devaluated and it’d cost the family probably much more than the few hundred millions it’d cost them to dump the deal.
c-sevenSerge Dassault shouln’t be underestimated. He’ve made Dassault Electronique (now part of Thales) and Dassault Systeme after all.
I fear more Charles Edelstenne who is a finance person (unlike Marcel and Serge who were ingeneer)
An ingeneer would say “ok, the deal isn’t terrific but we’re going to start the pump and we’re gona work hard to optimise the costs… and fire some bureaucratic/financials unproductive staff to do so :D”
The financial say: “it’s not profitable, we’re not going to work for peanuts” but don’t realize that it is the cost of all the structure which souround him to supervise that which cost too much very often.
On another hand Dassault has a culture of good cost control. It’s good when it’s to keep a project on the tracks but here, maybe, they should change a little bit their old habits….
Can Charles Edelstenne do that? Another problem is that he’s a bit old IMO (same for Serge Dassault BTW)…
c-sevensorry guys, to me the term “troll” is translating as someone who does something naughty on a forum (right?).
I don’t think a more aggressive newsletter from an international arms company can be called “trolling” in any sense….
We whinge about the style of this Eurofighter newsletter (originally it was poor grasp of English, now it’s too aggressive).
IMHO the bad editing is far more of a crime for something being thrown out to millions of readers (and potential customers).
Well, a agressive campaign would hightlight the pro of your product and exagerate the con of the other’s.
A troll would invent facts, take events out of context to prove a point ridiculously false… and would do all that a heavy maner without a bit of subtlelty.
And everybody in the know watch all this with a mix of laugh, shame feeling for the troll and annoyment.
Here we are in the 2nd case I fear 😮
c-sevenSome noted the ridiculous two seater “issue” but what about that bit:
However, perhaps a less written about
fact is that the French Air Force and Navy
were forced to use four different types of
fighters to complete their tasks: Rafale,
Mirage 2000 (in different versions), the
obsolete Mirage F.1 and the Super Etendard.
Why? Is it possible that the capabilities of
the Rafale were not as “wonderful” as had
been reported and the aircraft was not capable
of flying all “swing-role” missions as
planned?
Isn’t it even more trollish?
And thus isn’t it a proof of what we already knew, namely that they are indeed trolls at Eurofighter Gmbh media department?
Seriously…. :rolleyes:
c-sevenAccording to DSI rafale radar has 1001 modules. I would like to stress that this same magazine revealed long ago that the typhoon had 1421 modules, we learned a year or two latter that it was 1427. I my opinion I’ll trust DSI.
Well, for now the Captor has zero modules because it’s not an AESA radar (oh well: ONE module radar then…)
If we compare radars, it would be wise to compare curent Rafale’s AESA with curent mechanical Captor for now. And then, second stage, compare 2015 Rafale AESA radar with the first samples of Selex AESA radar which may come in line by 2015 for the Eurofighter Typhoon… if funded.
For 2015 the DGA has drawn a roadmap with Dassault and Thales with GaN (X10 theorical power density), Side conformal antenas, and other ECM and comunication exotic stuff.
French roadmaps tend to materialize even if it takes time.. unlike Eurofighter promises I must add.
c-sevenAgree to the Above. Develop the AMCA together ? 😀
One step after the other but I think it’s perfectly doable 🙂
And it’ll be partnership between equals and not be the member of a commitee to manage and grow a 5 heads heavy beast.
c-sevenNot taking sides as I prefer the Rafale of the two but don’t say things like the French are not motivated by Business.
There is no contradiction. Export is necessary in our independance model because France is a medium power whose home market is insuficient to sustain the R&D and all on the long run (in spite the excellence of our ingeneers).
On another hand if it’s to loose money on deals we make, it won’t help…
But France + India markets will be fine for both France and India independance.
c-sevenEven if the 5% figure is true, a finished plane which cost 5% less than a not finished plane doesn’t sounds too shoking to me.
In one case the co-development will be for new projects: conformal side AESA antenas, GaN AESA, sattelite data link, AESA wave forming, data link and jaming, carrier version, nuke, new comon missiles, etc.
In the other case the co-development will be to finish the job left down unfinished by a bunch of Europeans who’ve already turned the Eurofighter page.
It’s obvious that the Eurofighter fans are mostly motivated by business aim unlike the French who are more focused on a parnership to reinforce our independance model.
c-sevenConsolation Prize to Dassault in advance ??
In case the Typhoon is declared as winner next year ,the French government and Dassault would have very little to complain about because the Indians would say’ Hey guys look ,we paid a fortune for the upgrade of your 25+ years old Mirage’s so what do you want more ?Indians are good at damage control .Boeing lost the MMRCA and received an order for 10 C-17’s !
Wishfull thinking argument.
EF is leading in the PR department but the Rafale is nevertheless in pole position for plenty of technical reasons. The discount margin the M2000 deal gives to Dassault for the Rafale is only one of them along with the comonality of weapons, teams and infrastructures paid by the 2000 deal and which are used to work togather, on so on.
Also with the upgraded 2000 the Indians will have a up to date tool to deal with the high altitude, high speed arena where the 2000 is very good and their needs are now elsewhere.
Wait and see.
c-sevenLet’s be clear.
ASTRAC, a subsidy company of SAGEM was ready to take in charge different avionic procurement for the PAF.
That includes the JF17 avionic (through the help of a South African company if I remember correctly) but also a Rose5 upgrade for the Mirage 3 with … Mica and AASM!
A Rose 5 Mirage3 was even shown during the 2009 Bourget exhibition. I have pictures of it.
Don’t forget that ASTRAC upgraded the Marocan Mirage F1 with RC400 radar, Mica and AASM, a hell of upgrade if you ask me, and they are very serious.
All this could have gone forward but first: the packistani seems brocken at the moment and the French didn’t agreed with the payment conditions,
and secondly: Dassault sabotaged ASTRAC because the choice was made to give the priority to India and the Rafale for some reasons.
Edit: ASTRAC is in fact a JV between SAGEM and Thales
c-seven
India’s Mirage upgrade: a prelude to a Rafale MMRCA win?
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/asian-skies/2011/07/indias-mirage-upgrade-a-prelud.html
c-sevenI still think a stealthy cruise missile is the best possible way to kill a S300 batterie. Someone mentionned the Apache with cluster munitions instead of anti runway munition. I guess that would work.
Say you have 2 flights of 2 Rafales, one with 4 AASM and one with 1 or 2 Cluster Apaches. Pop up to make the radar reveal its position and triangulate the origin of the signal. Launch 1 or 2 Apache from two opposite direction and saturate the area with cluster ammo.
Probably not as nice as the original idea of IIR submunitions to tackle every piece of the sam site, but should be quite efficient nonetheless.
Nic
We already have a A2G ramjet missile with the ASMP-A.
I don’t get why they don’t envisage to derivate a anti-S300 and like version with classical amunissions (they did for anti-ship though but dropped for unknown reasons)
c-sevenSeriously, on the over-touting department, the EF PR team is at least five year ahead of everybody 😉
c-sevenFor the techno geek, some links about GaN, radar, UMS, SOITEC, etc
http://www.advancedsubstratenews.com/2008/05/gan-for-high-power-rf/
http://www.advancedsubstratenews.com/2007/05/1373/
http://www.advancedsubstratenews.com/2006/12/composite-substrates-promise-boost-for-gan-rf/
http://www.advancedsubstratenews.com/2006/07/innovative-substrate-opportunities-in-gan-rf-defense-applications/
http://www.advancedsubstratenews.com/2006/07/korrigan-initiative-federates-european-gan-efforts/
Seems not far to go out.
Useless to say that with a X10 power density, we’ll forget very quickly the “small noze story” of the Rafale when it’ll happen.
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